VPB's — The Benign and the Malignant

Angiographic evaluation of patients with coronary-artery disease has demonstrated that the two major determinants of mortality in the chronic phases of this disease are the extent of atherosclerosis within the coronary arterial tree (i.e., involvement of one, two or three coronary vessels) and the degree of ventricular dysfunction resultant from the atherosclerotic process.1 Thus, patients with single-vessel disease and normal ventricular function are known to have mortality rates identical to disease-free cohorts matched for age whereas a markedly increased mortality is experienced by patients with three-vessel disease and severe ventricular dysfunction.In contrast, during the most acute manifestation of coronary . . .